Come To Your Senses
by Zydrate
Summary: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. But don't worry, you'll come to enjoy it.
1. Prologue: Fear No More

A/N;;

This story has been sitting in my mind for months, and I fear if I don't post it now, I never will. Please review; Harsh, nice, I don't care, I just would really like feedback to help get my ideas straight in my mind.

Disclaimer;; I own nothing but the mistakes.

* * *

Finally, a smile touched his face as he laid his head back against the cold ground.

It was no where near as friendly nor as cheery as any smile could have been; With teeth bared only slightly and lips pulled taught, it looked more like a grimace to others who saw him, though no one bothered to pay any attention to the prone figure sprawled out on the floor. He was in a whole world of pain, and he was being ignored. Truly, this was the world he remembered. A shame, though he knew that none of it really mattered anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. Not to him.

He took a breath, opening his eyes a crack and staring above him, feeling his chest rise and fall quickly, lungs working desperately to keep his heart beating. An exercise in futility.

"I'm so sorry…" He mumbled between breaths, surprised to find his voice quiet, surprised to find it was so hard to breathe. Was it supposed to be like this? He had seen it many times, but it felt like there were hazy memory around each time, making it impossible to piece the memories together.

Maybe that was for the best. He had spent so much time trying to forget.

Even death had its perks.

This thought elicited a soft laugh from the man, the noise coming out as little more than a gurgle in his throat, the blood rapidly filling his lungs and throat spilling out over the side of his mouth as he tried to move his head to see what was going on around him. He must of noticed the liquid spilling from his mouth, as he managed to lift one arm cautiously to his face, marveling at how heavy his arm had become as he touched a gloved hand to the substance. Moving it away, he studied his hand with his remaining good eye, the other clouded and pale, nearly white with blindness. Red. So red. The color that had soaked his coat, his life… How appropriate it would permeate his death.

Had this been any other time, he would have been worried about the rapid approach of his own demise. But he wasn't. Would never be. It doesn't matter anymore.

Nothing mattered anymore.

There's no happy ending, so they say.

Nothing he had done in his entire life. None of it. All of it, undone by a simple move. Why had he done it? Because he wanted to? No, that couldn't be it, too simple, much too simple. Because he could? He had always been the one to test what he could and couldn't do. Was that why he had pulled this insane stunt? Just to test himself? If so, it was certainly a dumbass move on his part. But, then again, maybe it wasn't.

Around him, he was faintly aware of people yelling, voices and rapid footsteps, the crashing of objects forcefully meeting other objects. A cacophony of fear, ignorance and panic. If red was the color of his life, certainly this was the soundtrack. Every memory that flooded his hazy mind, every image was highlighted by screams and running, crashes and crunches and cracks. Blood red. Red red red, all of it.

Shifting his body a few inches, he attempted to lift his head, trying to see what was going on, trying to see if it was working. Doing so was futile; As soon as he moved, pain shot through his entire being, causing his back to arch and his head to tilt back and earning a gasp from a man who didn't have much more air to give up. Pain. Well, at least he finally felt something.

Keep your head up…

He had spent his entire life fixing the mistakes of others. Righting the wrongs. Scratching and clawing his way to the top, only to… To what? Finally maintain some balance of control, only to watch it all slip away from him? No, not even that, to give it all away? Give it all away to one stupid stunt.

One stupid stunt that would fix only one mistake?

What a crazy random…

Was it really all that stupid? Part of him said yes, the part that was silently cursing him, the part that had been dominate for so long. The other part of him said no, a part he had been so sure was dead, it was surprising to feel its influence once again, the influence that was slowly overtaking the other.

Feeling. How alien.

He didn't have to think about it any longer. Wouldn't be able to think about it, judging by the rapidly enclosing darkness overcoming him like a blanket, covering his gun, his coat, his goggles, wiping them all clean away with practiced ease that came with years of experience, no extra care given to this special case.

Even in the darkness…

Was it worth it?

Another grimace and a gurgle. His shattered mind relaxed as it reached a final conclusion, his body easing with it. Just relax and enjoy the ride.

And know the answer is yes.


	2. If You Can Find Me

He had entered his run down apartment, pulled off his right glove and collapsed into the sofa before reaching for the remote and turning the television on. The news, as usual.

That had been fourteen hours ago. He hadn't moved much since then.

Sure, he had wanted to. He had wanted to turn the TV off and just go to sleep, or perhaps work on one of his many projects still laying half-finished around his lab, do something, anything to keep his mind from wandering. He didn't want to watch the news, watch them play and replay the footage from the shelter all night long. But he did. With a sort of morbid curiosity, he had patiently waited for them to play the footage the first time through, just to see what it looked like. Everything he had planned had gone off wonderfully, but of course that wasn't what the media showed. No, they showed him laughing, firing wildly into the ceiling, being hit by Hammer, Hammer gloating over him, him standing over her, bits of his so-called "Victory" speech.

Amazing. Somehow, his carefully worded and rehearsed monologue didn't get into there. They didn't show him addressing the audience, they didn't even show him carrying her, the stretcher… It seemed like everything they could do to make him appear as twisted and evil as possible they showed, while anything that hinted at anything else, that he was anything more than an evil mad scientist was cut out, nothing even being mentioned by the anchors as they introduced each clip of video.

There's the media for you.

And so he watched the clips. And he watched them again. And again. And again. Over and over and over until the words from the different news channels mixed together in an incoherent word salad. The words "murderer" and "monster" were tossed about easily, along with "evil" and "sick." Flashes of red and blue and white. Blood on her shirt, on his hands…

Somewhere around eight am he must of drifted off, because he found himself suddenly startled awake by the sound of an explosion. He sat up quickly, the sudden movement causing his goggles to slip off his forehead and land painfully against the bridge of his nose. Grabbing the goggles with his bare hand, he pushed them back up, tired blue eyes darting back and forth behind them as he tried to locate the source of the sound. There was no smoke, no smell of chemicals, so it was improbably one of his projects had blown up… Was it the television? Were they playing the clip again? A quick glance confirmed that they weren't, that they were currently running a commercial advertising Snuggies: Blankets with sleeves! Or something equally as useless. What was it, then?

Slowly getting to his feet, he carefully made his way to his window, pushing aside the dark curtain and squinting against the newly risen sun. Nothing: No smoke. No fires. No screaming, no chaos, nothing that indicated anyone else had even heard an explosion. Were they really so blind, they had ignored it? Or… Or had it not happened? Maybe he just dreamed it?

Great. Fantastic. He was dreaming of- Of that. Just what he wanted.

His shoulders slumping, the doctor turned and made his way back to the sofa, sitting on the edge and holding his head in his hands, groaning into his glove. He didn't want to face the world right now, doubted he would ever want to again. He just wanted to curl up into a small hole and live out the rest of his life as a recluse, safely separated from humanity where he couldn't touch them and they couldn't bother him, where he might be able to for--

His phone rang. It was the upbeat, country-esque song, the ring tone specifically chosen to warn him who was calling. Of course they would call.

Of course. Killing someone fulfilled the last requirement in his application. Someone was dead, though he may not have been the one to pull the trigger he was just as responsible. For hesitating, for creating the device in the first place. If anything, it was more his fault. Plus, the league wouldn't know right away he wasn't the one to pull the trigger. He had seen the clips of film over one hundred times throughout the night, and not one of them showed Hammer right before he pulled the trigger.

They couldn't show that. Never mind the fact their hero had fled the scene in tears. He was still their hero.

Billy stared at the phone for several long seconds as it rang, the familiar tune quickly getting on his nerves. He was almost tempted not to answer it; They'd been the ones who told him to kill someone in the first place. He hated killing, and look what happened. The person he had been aiming for was alive-- Probably curled in the fetal position on some shrink's couch, telling some sob story from his childhood as he tried to cling to what was left of his bravery and heroism, but alive-- And the one person he hadn't wanted… the one person that actually mattered, who… Who…

He answered the phone. Three male voices sang loudly the moment he did so, causing him to cringe and hold the phone away from his ear. He didn't catch the first few lines, but he was sure they were probably filled with witty rhymes that he would of appreciated were it any other time or circumstance, but it wasn't and he really didn't care anymore. However, he did manage to catch the end of it:

"You've killed her dead with no remorse.

Welcome aboard, partner!

Signed, Bad Horse."

He snapped the phone shut, gaped at it for what felt like an eternity to him, then threw it against the wall above the television. Hard. The cheap plastic snapped as it slammed into the plaster with an audible crack, the top and bottom halves splitting in two before the pieces fell to the floor in a heap, one of the bits clunking against the television as it fell.

The noise served its purpose, his jumbled and chaotic thoughts abruptly coming into focus. Leaning back into the sofa, Billy closed his eyes, rubbing his face with his hands. He was in the league. He was finally a recognized villain. She was dead. Judging by the news, people were finally beginning to fear him. He had killed her. His plan had gone off without a hitch, and he'd achieved his goal. He had carried her to the stretcher. He was now widely considered to be pretty damn evil. She was dead.

A knock. "Doc?"

He was in the league, she was dead, people feared him, and Moist was at the door.

One at a time, please!

"Doc?" Another knock. "Are you in there?" The doctor peeked out between his fingers at his door, shaking his head. Silently, he willed him to go away. He didn't want to see anyone right now, not a hero, not a villain, not a very soggy henchmen. The only person he could possibly want to see was gone.

Way to go, Dr. Horrible!

"C'mon Doc, I know you're in there. I saw your car out front." Damn. "Just open up."

"Doc?"

"Can you hear me?" More knocking.

"You didn't go an shoot yourself or something, did you? Because that would look really bad. I mean, like… For the league and all."

"…Doc, I'm serious. Are you alright?"

No. He wasn't. But he wasn't going to admit that. He was a true villain now. He couldn't let people, not even his henchmen and arguably closest friend (Only friend, actually) think that he wasn't. But how was he going to pull this off?

"Doc?!" Alright. First, he should probably stop the damp man outside before he had a panic attack and woke up the neighbors.

Taking a deep breath, the doctor spoke up. "I'm… Fine, Moist. Just go home."

He could almost hear the relief in the other man's voice. "You sure? I mean… yesterday… it's all over the news, you know?"

"Yeah. I know." Only too well. He glared at the television as the news cast continued.

There was a moment of silence. For a moment, Billy thought Moist had gone, but soon his voice soaked through the door again. "Did… **He** call?"

How to answer that. "Yeah. He called."

"What'd he say?" Excitement. How easily even his henchmen could get past what had happened.

"He… I got in."

"Awesome! Congrats, man!" Another silence as he realized what he had just said. "I mean, um… yeah, uh… I-I'll talk to you later." Pause. "I guess?" Pause. Billy glared at the door. "So… See you."

The doctor continued to look at the door for many more minutes. Making as little noise as possible, he got up off the couch, going to the door. He stood up against it, pushing his ear to the wood, trying to see if he could hear anyone outside. See if Moist had only lied about leaving, and was hoping to trick him into opening the door for him. He heard nothing.

Usually, Moist could get in on his own; He had a key, and no matter how terrible he was at opening locks, he could usually get into the doctor's place within the first ten or so attempts. But when he had resolved to convert his stun ray into a death ray… A week ago? A few days ago? Whatever. Anyway, he had been sure to change his lock, so that he wouldn't be interrupted.

Not that Moist didn't try. Persistent, soggy little guy.

After a few more minutes of standing at the door, Billy spoke up. "Moist?" No answer. He waited for another minute, counting the seconds in his head before he unlocked the door, opening it a crack. "Moist?"

No one was out there. The hallway was empty. No one was up at eight am, even if it was… Monday. Or, was it Sunday? It didn't matter, whatever day it was.

He was alone.

In the room behind him, the news cast continued, and he noticed for the first time in several hours that they never used her name when they spoke about her. Just called her "The victim" or "Hammer's girlfriend." Did they not even know her name? Did they really not care enough about the deceased to bother to find out anything about her?

No. They didn't. They only cared about the hero and villain of the story. They didn't care about some poor, innocent bystander who didn't deserve to die.

The world was made up of people waiting to become innocent bystanders. An exercise in patience. Soon, they would get what they were waiting for.


	3. I Don't Do Sadness

It had been forty-two hours and twenty seven minutes, give or take a few minutes, since it happened. Not that he was keeping track or counting or anything.

In those forty two hours, he had accomplished absolutely nothing. He had tried to justify his inaction to himself, forcing himself to believe he was tired, or he was relaxing before he got into the league and the real work began. Or that he deserved a break after… That. Or, something else. He wasn't keeping track of his pathetic excuses anymore. In truth, he was tired, very much so; In the forty two hours and twenty seven-- Twenty eight-- minutes, he had managed to get no sleep. Every time he felt himself nodding off, he's imagine he could see a flash of red or blue, or he'd hear an explosion and smell blood, sticky and sweet, and he'd be jolted awake. Eventually, he gave up on sleep, and turned to what stock of red bull he had left in his fridge to keep him going.

He figured he wouldn't last much longer, though. When your first meal in forty two hours and twenty nine minutes took a moment to greet you as you opened the fridge, it was time to get some sleep. Or, alternatively, never experiment with animals again.

Noon on Tuesday (Wednesday? Monday? What day was it, anyway?) found Billy stretched out listlessly on his couch, staring blankly at the ceiling and trying to keep his mind from betraying him and letting him remember it again. He knew he would go mad trying to keep himself sane if he kept this up for much longer, but it was the only plan he had going for him right now, and damn it, he was going to stick to it!

Another knock at the door.

Billy sat up abruptly, eyeing the door. He stayed quiet, waiting for the other to speak up. "Doc?" Ah, Moist again. The doctor wasn't sure whether he should be touched his friend cared about him, or slightly worried at the other man seemed to have nothing better to do but check up on him. "Come on Doc, open up, no one's heard from you in two days."

"No thanks," Billy replied, laying back down on the couch and closing his eyes.

A different, male bass spoke up. "Open up, Doctor, or I'll beat your door down."

"I told you to keep quiet!" He heard Moist whisper to the other man.

"Well, sorry, but if he's going to be all pussy ass on us--"

"Keep it down!"

"--I'm going to break his door down!"

Fearing for his door, Billy rolled clumsily to his feet, padding to the door and unlocking it, opening it a few inches to see the two henchmen waiting outside, both of whom were glaring at one another. Moist was quite obviously losing, the taller and stronger and not-wet pink-clad hench towering over him. "What?" He asked flatly.

The two turned, as if just realizing he had actually opened the door. An uncomfortable moment passed as the three stared at each other for a few seconds before the Pink Pummeler spoke up. "Man, you look like hell."

Billy felt his eye twitch slightly and went to close the door, before Pink pushed his glove in the door, easily overpowering the scientist and pushing the door open. "Heyheyhey! Touchy touchy. Jeez, lighten up. And comb your hair," The taller hench commented, brushing by Billy and into the apartment. Moist teetered on his heels for a few seconds outside the door before following, leaving the doctor holding the door open with a bemused look on his face.

"Um… We got your newspaper…" Moist said lamely as Billy closed and locked the door behind them, stepping past the two without a word. Pink turned, pulling a folded newspaper from behind his back with a flourish and unfolding it, opening up the front page with a grin on his face. "Look, dude! You made the front page. Two days in a row!" He glanced at Horrible's picture, tilting his head. "Oh, look at that, your hair is messy here, too; Do you own a comb? Love the glare, though. Really adds to the effect."

Billy frowned at his own picture. The caption "Worst Villain Ever" was wrapped around it in big, white letters; Someone must of missed a deadline and covered for it by enlarging his picture so that it covered most of the page. He would admit, it was a good picture for a villain… Even if his hair was messy.

"…Thanks?" He ventured, realizing Pink was watching his closely for a reaction. The taller hench grinned at the picture one last time before shoving it into the doctor's chest and looking away, glancing about the apartment. "Soggy say's you haven't left your apartment since Sunday."

"Has he," Billy glanced at Moist, mouthing "Why did you bring him here?" All Moist could do was nervously shrug and wring his hands, drops of water hitting the wooden floor beneath him.

Pink turned, glaring down at the smaller doctor. "He also said you got accepted." Billy cringed inwardly, knowing that the Pink Pummeler had applied for and concurrently rejected from the ELE countless times. Apparently, the league didn't want a homophobe who had the tendency to break into show tunes and buy fruity drinks for his victims instead of, well, pummeling them. Billy feared Pink would forget the drink and song for him and instead beat him out of jealousy.

Instead, a wide grin broke out on the wannabe villain's face. "Congrats! Oh, I wish you had told me yesterday, we can throw a party for you and everything!"

"No." Was the doctor's swift and firm reply.

Pummeler bounced his knees, leaning his head back and looking at the ceiling in a manner a child might act. "Oh come oooooon. It'll be fun, I promise!" He whined in a voice that was at least two octaves higher than his normal voice.

"No. No parties, no--"

"How about a heist! One last hoo-rah before the League sucks out your soul and doesn't let you play with the little guys again," Pink offered, smiling hopefully.

The doctor feared the time for that had lost since passed. Opening his mouth, Billy tried to respond with a rejection that would get the point across, but couldn't seem to word it correctly in his head. He looked to Moist for support, who simply continued to shake his head and drip all over the floor, obviously trying to stay out of it. Some help he was. Finding an appropriate rejection, the doctor looked to Pink again. "No."

Pink groaned. "Look! Okay. I get it. I get it, really. You're all depressed because you murdered your lady friend in--"

"Shut up," Dr. Horrible growled, his hands balling into fists.

"No, listen! You're all depressed, and sitting around your apartment and waiting to die or rot or something isn't going to fix anything, and it sure as hell isn't going to bring her back. You can either sit around and mope all the time, or you can pick yourself up and move on. And I'm not-- We're not, right Moist?-- We're not going to let you sit around here," Pink finished, crossing his thick arms across his chest and looking to Moist for support.

Moist moved his mouth like a fish, looking between the Doctor and Pink, both of whom were looking back at him. Finally, he shook his head and shrugged, drops of water flying everywhere at an even faster rate than usual.

Pink frowned. "You're no help, you know that?" He turned to the Doctor, continuing, " So choose."

Billy tilted his head, glaring at the taller man. "Thanks but no thanks. I'll mope," he muttered, taking a step forward to move past Pink, who was blocking his escape path back to the couch.

Pink grabbed his shoulders, holding him in place. "Don't make me force you."

Billy looked at the pink gloves on his shoulders, swatting at them with his hands in a futile attempt to push him off. "Sorry," He grumbled.

"Fine. I'll make you, then. We're going to go rip off a bank. You, me, and Moist. And you're going to go get your freeze ray or stun ray or whatever-the-hell ray you have, and you are going to enjoy yourself. Isn't that right, Moist?"

Moist raised his hands in surrender.

"Okay?" Pink concluded, staring the smaller man in the eye. Billy slumped his shoulders, giving in with a resigned sigh. The Pink Pummeler beamed. "Great! This is going to be so much fun!" With a laugh that was much to high pitched for a man that size, Pink pushed Billy to the side, the Doctor grabbing desperately at the closest piece of furniture-- His kitchen counter, as it would appear-- Before he fell over. "Come on, let's go," Pink shouted over his shoulder before he opened the door, leaving the two in the apartment. As he left, they could clearly hear him singing something. "Always look on the briiiight side of life…"

Horrible straightened up, adjusted his goggles and looked to Moist. Moist shrugged. "I'm sorry?"

* * *

It had been forty three hours and seventeen minutes. Not that he was counting.

Quarter to one in the afternoon found Horrible, Moist and the Pink Pummeler sitting in Pink's car in the driveway across the street from the 5th/3rd National Bank. "Why this one?" Moist asked, looking to Horrible in the back seat, who was currently busy adjusting an older wrist mounted version of his stun ray to fit with his glove.

"Because we don't have a plan," Horrible glanced to Pink, who failed to notice he was being blamed for the lack of a plan, "And because I really, really hate the name of this bank."

"Oh." As if that explained everything, Moist turned back around in his seat, his wet clothes causing the leather to squeak, much to Pink's annoyance. With a frown, Pink glanced at the clock on his radio, tapping his gloves against the steering wheel. "Are you ready yet, Doc?" He grumbled impatiently.

"No. Why are you in a rush, anyway?" Horrible asked, not even bothering to look away from the stun ray.

"Moist is going to ruin my new seats if he stays in here much longer…" Pink complained.

Moist moaned and looked away, wringing his hands out again. "Making him feel bad about it is only going to cause him to sweat more…" Horrible pointed out.

"You're right." Pink paused. "Get out, Moist," he ordered, unlocking the door. Moist blinked. "Now." With a sigh, the soggy hench opened the door and slid out, his head bowed slightly, giving the two a forlorn look before shutting the door. "Good. Ready yet?" Pummeler twisted around in his seat, peering over the head rest at the stun ray.

"If I say yes, will you quit bugging me?"

"Probably."

Horrible made a few last minor adjustments before putting the screw driver down on the seat, testing the weight on the stun ray. "Okay. Let's go," he grumbled.

"Don't be like that, it'll be fun," With that, Pink grabbed the sports bag in his lap, threw it over his shoulder and exited the car, followed by the doctor a second later.

"Whatever you say…"

Crossing the street, the three stayed close together, with Pink and Moist flanking Horrible on both sides. Pink whistled cheerfully, the only one of the three who appeared to be enjoying himself; Moist looked rather uncomfortable, and Horrible managed to appear completely apathetic. The trio stopped just outside the doors, pink peering inside. "Ready?" he asked, grinning to the two behind him.

Moist nodded. Horrible tapped his stun ray with his opposite hand, staring down the street away from them. Frowning, Pink punched his boxing gloves together in front of Horrible's face, causing the doctor to blink and back away, shielding his face with his arm. "Hello! Earth to doctor! Ready?"

"Ready," Horrible muttered.

"Okay… Oh." Pink frowned, staring at Horrible for a moment. "You still haven't combed your hair… Too late, now." With that, he turned and shoved the doors open roughly, bellowing at the top of his lungs, "ON YOUR KNEES! ALL OF YOU! SHOW SOME RESPECT!"

Horrible rolled his eyes and went in after Pink, raising his wrist and pointing the mounted weapon at the ten or so people in there as he passed by them. Typically, he would of enjoyed their shocked and confused reactions; Most of them crouching behind desks and chairs out of reflex, while a few stood and gaped. Those who stood were quickly pushed down to their knees by Pink and Moist, who went around and kept them all a safe distance away from the Doctor. Horrible watched them blankly, absentmindedly pointing the gun at the closest group of people while he waited for the henchmen to finish.

"Good, good, and good… Cheer up, kiddo, you're getting a front row seat to a robbery. This is like, the zoo, but more exciting," Pink commented to a little boy, who clung to his mother and buried his head in her shoulder. Turning to the Doctor, he shook the empty gym bag over his shoulder, and the two moved to the teller at the front of the bank while Moist kept watch on the other people.

The woman behind the desk stared at Horrible, blinking rapidly. "Ohmygod, you're him!" She said quickly. The Doctor levied the stun ray, jerking his head to the bag.

"Money. Now." He ordered shortly. Pink dropped the bag on the desk, shoving it across the girl, who took a step back in surprise and stared at the bag as if it were going to bite her. Behind her, a man in a suit stepped out of an office.

"What's going on, Jen--" His eyes flicked from Horrible, to Pink, to the bag, then back to the two. He tried to move toward the panic button behind him, but was stopped when Horrible pointed the gun at him. "A-Alright. Do what they say, Jenny," The suited man ordered, holding his hands up over his head. Jenny nodded enthusiastically, grabbing the bag and rushing to the back.

"You, come around the desk," Horrible ordered the man, keeping the ray gun trained on him. The man nodded, cautiously moving around the desk, soon making his way toward the people on the floor. Making eye contact with the villain, he slowly lowered himself to his knees, keeping his hands in the air, as if to be perfectly clear on what he was doing.

A few quiet moments passed. The hostages stayed quiet, too in awe at what was happening to make a noise. Horrible was disgusted with how they acted; This wasn't how his heists ever went. There was always those there that laughed at him, those who didn't take him seriously and called the cops, who promptly came and ran him off. Or he was beaten by Hammer. Or, something. Sure, he wasn't missing the beatings, but this… Wasn't right.

"Here…" The girl, Jenny, spoke up, dragging a bag behind her as she made her way back to the counter. Pink jumped over the desk, landing next to the girl and easily throwing the bag over his shoulder. "There's more, though--"

"Jenny!" The business man whined. Horrible pointed the gun back at him, glaring at him until he was silent again. As soon as he was sure he wouldn't be interrupted, he turned to the girl again. "Go get the rest of it. Pummeler, Moist, go with her," He ordered.

The two henchmen made haste to follow their orders, Moist obviously delighted he was getting to do something besides stand around and make the floor slippery. As soon as he was sure they were gone, Horrible turned to the small crowd, lowering the gun and leaning back against the desk.

A moment passed. Then, a young man in the corner spoke up. "So… Why'd you kill her?"

Horrible replied by pointing the gun at him.

Or, maybe he had asked something else. Maybe he had asked if he could call his mother, or something else completely harmless and reasonable. But that wasn't what Billy heard, and he figured his response was completely and totally appropriate.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, they had loaded the cash into the car and the three villains had split, Pink and Moist laughing as they got into the car. They were telling some story to Horrible about what the girl had been saying as they had been getting the money, and the doctor could only manage to look mildly interested, his mind clearly elsewhere. "And then… Ohgod, and then, she asked for an autograph. Can you believe that?" Pink asked, laughing and clapping his huge gloves together.

Unfortunately, Horrible could believe it.

The two must of picked up on the doctor's despondent mood, as Pink twisted around in his seat again, glaring at the doctor. "Oh, come on! That was fun and you know it!"

"It's fun," Horrible started, ripping off the stun rap and placing it in his lap, rubbing his wrist. "When there's cops, or some sort of excitement, and when your crowd aren't excited that they're being robbed. That was just pathetic," he spat, crossing his arms and staring out the window. Pink sighed over dramatically, turning in his seat to Moist.

"Grumpy Gus didn't have fun. Did you?"

"Please don't do this to me again…" Moist mumbled.

"Oh, fine." Pink was silent for a moment as he put the key in the ignition, twisting and starting the car. "You know what?" He asked, looking at Horrible in the rear-view mirror. "You owe me some fun. I'm throwing you that party, whether you like it or not."

Horrible opened his mouth to object, but promptly closed it and sighed. He knew a losing battle when he saw one. Might as well save his breath.


	4. Look Down

Ninety-four hours, forty three minutes and counting. If he kept counting, he could pin a number on the event, think of it in quantitative terms. Quantitative terms could be dealt with, managed in a wholly logical matter; If it worked in math, why couldn't it work here? Math didn't require emotions. Science didn't require emotions.

Why should he?

Then again, math and science didn't need sleep, either, but it was increasingly apparent he did. He had managed to sleep for two hours the night before, but that was hardly much of a relief. Still, it would work for now; He wouldn't have to appear too alert until Saturday, for the League meeting. He had two days to either get over it, or crash hard enough he could sleep dreamlessly. Somehow, he suspected the latter of the two would occur before the former.

Until then, he would just spend the time making it from minute to minute.

Somehow, he didn't expect one of those minutes to take place across the street from a church.

----

Ninety-two hours, fourteen minutes. Give or take three minutes since he last looked at a clock, which was right before he read the first e-mail.

The league was intelligent, no one could argue against that. Intelligent enough to have high standards, and to hold it's members to said standards. Horrible had known this going in to the deal; Hell, it's the entire reason he had worked on that evil laugh, which had succeeded in worming it's way into his nightmares at the very least. He hadn't expected another whole list of rules, regulations and oh-so-carefully worded 'suggestions' to be thrown at him—Come on, the league was made up of criminals and sociopaths, even having high standards was pushing it— two days before the first meeting.

Reading through the list quickly, he found that most of the regulations made sense. "Don't form any close attachments to anyone or anything," figured that one out on his own, (The sudden callous thought made him cringe,) "Keep your face covered unless you know you can get away with showing your face," "Be prepared to move house/base/lab/lair/stall location at a moment's notice," and so on and so forth. Other guidelines were frivolous, at least in his mind, and pertained to the image the league wanted to keep. "Get rid of the white: Red or black are more suited," and "Keeping your goggles on top of your head makes you look like a student trying to show off." Harsh, but these were professionals. (So was he, he mentally reminded himself.)

These rules didn't bother him too much. Annoying, but reasonable. Other regulations bothered him, though. "Never leave anyone (alive) that witnessed any major crimes you will commit," "Be prepared to do anything Bad Horse or other higher ups ask of you to do," and "Cut any ties with the henchmen union; They're lower in station than you and are only there to help with easy, trivial tasks. They are not your friends."

That last one seemed a bit too direct for comfort.

His mind quickly summed up the entire list: "We want you to be a cold hearted bastard."

Horrible expected this. He knew he had expected this; he just had never bothered to think about it. Now, it was too late to think about it… Then again, maybe he didn't want to think about it. Cold hearted didn't sound like that bad of an idea, all things considering; It would certainly take care of most of his problems right now, and would most likely take care of any problems in the future, as a few of the other rules suggested there may be.

Rubbing his eyes, Horrible glanced at the clock again, added the elapsed time to his count (ninety two hours, seventeen minutes) and scanned over the list one last time, committing the main points to memory before closing it and deleting it. Turning away from the computer, he thought about the last paragraph, one that hadn't been apart of the list:

"These regulations are what separate the League from other, lesser crime groups and radical rings. We are not mindless murderers; we are classy evil. We are not thick-headed heroes; we are intelligent and mindful."

Crime rings and the Heroes Guild. Both were just excuses for people to band together and beat up those smaller and weaker than themselves.

------

Ninety-three hours, twenty one minutes.

Horrible didn't have to look away from his whiteboard to know that two people had let themselves into his apartment. Judging by the sound of a whistled song and the squeaks, it was Pink and Moist again. Damn. "What do you want?" The doctor asked, staring at the equations for the death ray he had scribbled down over ninety-three hours ago.

"Party ring a bell? Remember?" Came back Pink's voice. Horrible frowned. Of course he remembered; He had just hoped that if he ignored it, it would go away. Like that line of thinking helped him at all.

"We brought your paper—" Pink started as the two found the doctor, only to be cut off by Moist.

"Uh, maybe we shouldn't…"

"What?" Pink snatched the slightly damp paper out of Moist's hands, already having it open to the page the sweatier man had been looking at. Horrible glanced over at the two over his shoulder, raising a brow slightly as he watched Pink's expression go from mildly amused to blank, finally evolving into a slight frown. "Oh. Well, uh…"

"…That isn't today's paper," Moist chimed in helpfully.

Moist was a terrible liar. "Let me see," Horrible finally said, reaching to grab the paper from Pink, who quickly pulled it out of his reach.

"No, really, nothing interesting," Pink added, closing the paper and keeping it away from the Doctor as he made another attempt to take it from him. "Just economic reports. Boy, are we in a recession yet or what? Everything keeps falling, we're so in debt…"

"You don't care about economics. Tell me what's in the paper," Horrible said flatly, crossing his arms across his chest. The two henchmen glanced at each other, both willing the other to speak up. Billy couldn't help but think this would be somewhat comical, if this weren't their everyday behavior that was seriously beginning to annoy him.

Moist broke first, predictably. Tugging the paper away from Pink, he handed it to Horrible, who quickly opened it to the page they had been looking at. "It's just, you know…" He didn't have to finish the sentence.

Funeral announcements.

Horrible didn't want to read anymore, but already his eyes caught too much before he could close the paper and hand it back. A name he recognized at a church not far from his apartment at five. Of course. _Of course._

The three said nothing for a moment, Horrible quickly losing his patience and giving up on hearing anything out of the two, going back to re-examining his whiteboard. "So…Are you going to go?" Moist asked.

Horrible's response was quick. "Of course not."

Moist raised his eyebrow, Pink grunting in the back of his throat. "Well, good, that's resolved. We're setting up. What are you doin', Doc?" He asked, quickly changing the subject back that was more comfortable for him.

"Going out," Horrible replied flatly.

"But you said you weren't—"

"I'm not. I just have to go to the store. Okay?" Horrible turned to the taller henchmen, something on his face clearly telling the pink-clad man not to push it. Raising his bright gloves in surrender, Pink took a few steps away.

"Okay, okay. C'mon Moist, let's see if he has anything to drink here."

"He doesn't…" And with that, the two left Horrible alone, probably leaving a bit quicker than usual.

Listening to the two speak in the kitchen, the doctor tilted his head slightly, staring blankly at the board. He didn't want to think about death rays and funerals, not now. Resolving to go to the store as he had planned, Billy turned and quickly unbuttoned his coat, pulling off the costume with practiced ease and tossing it over the oversized arm chair he kept in his lab, quickly sending his goggles after it as he turned to find a hoodie to put on. As he did so, he heard something hard connect with something solid, the smaller of the two objects moving and falling, hitting the ground with a quiet crash. Raising a brow, Billy moved around the chair, to see what he had knocked over.

A picture frame sat on the floor, the glass broken into three large pieces.

Closing his eyes and retreating, he swiftly grabbed one of his old grey hoodies and pulled it on, making his way toward the door. Stopping as if he changed his mind, Billy turned and returned to the picture, being very careful not to look at it. Gently, he tugged it out of it's frame, folding it so that the image wouldn't show if one was to look at it, and quickly stuffing it into the pocket of his jacket, shoving the broken frame under his desk with his foot.

Then and only then did he leave.

-----

Billy had a car. It was old and beat up, but ran well—His expertise may not lie in motors, but he knew how to look after one better than the average person. All of those reasons pointed to him driving, but instead he chose to walk. There was a drug store down the street from him, and he was sure they had dye; Plus, the longer he was out, the longer he didn't have to come back and face whatever it was the henchmen were planning for him.

He got the dye, and carried it in his pocket with the picture. He should have just returned home. His apartment was just down the street; there was no possible way he could get lost. He didn't even have to turn a corner, that's how simple the path was.

Somehow, Billy's path had managed to put him across the street from a church.

I took him several seconds to realize that he hadn't gone the right way, and several more to piece together where he had ended up. Silently he cursed himself, resolving to go home. He couldn't stay there, it would be…

What, exactly? Disrespectful? Insulting? Painful?

Maybe some mixture of the three, maybe something else. He didn't want to think about it. Not now, not ever if he could manage it. Turning away from the church, ignoring the several people that had turned up, Billy ducked his head and moved away, shoving his hands into his pockets as he ran into something solid and larger than he was. Taking a step back, he mumbled a quick apology, his eyes flicking up for a moment away from the concrete to see whom he had run into.

The brunette man stared at him, taking a few steps back as he realized whom he had run into. "I-I'm sorry," He started, soon failing to find words. Billy just stared, unable to believe it. A thousand swears and insults came to mind, his hands balling into fists inside his pockets. If he wasn't sure the man could still very easily throw him across the way, he was pretty sure he would of hit him.

Though judging by the other man's posture and lack of costume, maybe he wouldn't be able to.

Billy said nothing for a moment longer, slowly shaking his head. "Un-be-live-able," He spat, pronouncing each syllable as if he didn't want to finish the word. "Unbelievable. You're just… You're really a capital douche, you know that?" He continued, the initial venom fading into disgust. "Why the hell are _you _here."

It wasn't a question; it was a demand. The larger man scratched the back of his head, his eyes darting beyond the shorter blond and back down to him. Billy felt a smug smirk tug at his mouth, quickly fading as he spoke again. "What? Nervous?" He asked, narrowing his eyes slightly as he scrutinized the taller man. He took a step forward; the other took a step away. "Scared." He concluded, tilting his head back and observing the man. "You're… Scared." He shook his head.

The taller former hero bit his lip, taking a step forward in an attempt to regain some ground. "I'm here to… You know, pay my respects. Just why—" Horrible took another step forward, and the man quickly took another step away, confirming Horrible's prediction. "Why are you here?"

Billy stared. "Obvious reasons," he lied.

"Not here, I mean… Why aren't you in there?" He asked, pointing to the church across the street. Billy followed his finger, feeling safe enough to let his eyes off the man; He wouldn't hurt him-- too frightened.

With a shake of his head, he turned his attention back to the man, his face wholly apathetic. "For the same reason you aren't. Neither of us deserves to go in there." Not bothering to waste another breath on the man, Billy easily brushed by a man who would of easily beaten his face in over ninety-five hours ago, but was now too scared of a smaller villain to do anything to stop him or get in his way.

Somehow, Doctor Horrible figured he would never have to worry about the shell of Hammer he turned his back on ever bothering him again.

----

He was late. He didn't care anymore. The league said to stop mixing with henchmen—Fine, he could play by their rules. The league wasn't full of men like Hammer, the league was full of people like him; Those smart enough to see the world was a mess, brave enough to do something about it, and able to ignore right and wrong in order to bring about change. If the league wanted him to be heartless in order to reach that end, then he would just have to be heartless.

Quickly slipping back into his apartment, Horrible quickly put his coat and goggles on, going to his lab and retrieving the prototype death ray he built before, and his freeze ray. Tucking them safely in his arms, he moved past the henchmen that were filling his apartment, only pausing to acknowledge one or two as they greeted him. Moving to the back of his apartment, he quickly went inside his room, shutting and locking the door behind him.

It had been ninety-five hours and six minutes since that event. He could start working on both of his main inventions again now, and never make the mistake that he had made nearly one hundred hours ago. Rookie mistakes wouldn't pass in the league.

And Horrible was determined to not only pass, but also excel.


	5. The Garden Path to Hell

Excelling was really, really hard when you didn't know where to go, or even what time to be there, for your first meeting. This thought was enough to wake Horrible up a little past five in the morning on Saturday, (That would make it… one hundred twenty nine hours, ten minutes?) and cause him to pace around his apartment in a state closely resembling panic. He walked back and forth in his lab, running his hand through his hair as he tried to figure out what to do. It wasn't like there was a number he could call for this sort of thing, or an email address he could use. He had deleted the email they had sent him, and even that he doubted would have been a little use; Probably just one of many fake email accounts.

What was he going to do then? The league wasn't very lenient, and he had no illusions about what would happen to him should he miss a meeting, especially his first, without a decent excuse. Somehow, pleading ignorance didn't seem like it would work for him.

Somewhere, in his flood of thoughts and panic-inducing images of him dead somewhere, he managed to walk by his door and notice a chilly draft. Blinking as the draft caught his attention, he turned to the door, his eyes focusing on the obviously broken lock, the lock managing to keep the door from closing completely. What the…? Had someone broken into his apartment? Frowning, he went to test the lock, coming face-to-face with a white piece of paper that had been taped to the inside of his door. Jolting his head back, he blinked hard a few times, his frayed nerves not wanting to allow him to read the note. Shaking his head to clear his head, Horrible snatched the note off, opening the door a crack more to let in the morning light from outside.

It was short and too the point.

"LIFE charity center, ten am. Tell the secretary your there to see the president, she'll let you in. Come in street clothes-- They don't know we're there!

BTW, get a better lock. --PN"

Doing his best to ignore the glaring grammatical error, Horror read the note twice, fighting the urge to laugh at the league's intelligence and nerve. In order to make sure they couldn't be traced, they wouldn't leave their location in any email where it could be traced, or say it on a phone where someone could tap it. Breaking into the member's house and leaving a note pretty much assured only the member would see it, unless someone else noticed the lock was busted or someone else was staying with the member… Not that Horrible had anyone to stay with him, anyway. Whether they were being paranoid or safe didn't matter; It was smart. It was also probably why the police still couldn't track them down.

Huh.

Deciding he would probably find out who "PN" was later and that no one would mess with his door. Horrible stumbled back to his room for a few hours more sleep. With any luck, the nightmares would stay away.

* * *

One hundred thirty three hours, fifty minutes. Why was he still keeping track of that?

"I'm here to see the president," Horrible said flatly to the girl behind the desk. Usually he would of frozen up just trying to say a word to someone like that, but he didn't even notice her today. What he did notice was that LIFE looked like a pretty respectable charity, with several workers walking around the hallways, pictures and portraits of past fundraised on the walls, as well as awards and other memorabilia. If this was a front for the league, it was a good one.

The secretary looked away from her computer, her dark eyes going from the bag he had slung over his shoulder to her face, a genuine smile touching her face. "Of course, you must be his ten o'clock. He's at the back of the building." She stood up as she spoke, pointing down the hall to her left, his right. "Go down there and take a left at the end. Follow it until you reach a double set of doors. They'll lead into a small room, and the last door on your left will be the conference room."

Horrible memorized this, and nodded, fiddling with the bag's strap absentmindedly. "Thank you," he said quickly, walking down the hall away from her.

Sitting down again, the secretary shook her head. The president certainly was an eccentric man. She had never met him, but the people that came in for his meetings always were a bit off. This guy was new, and there was definitely something wrong with him, but she couldn't place it. Deciding it wasn't her place to ask questions like that, she went back to work, the phones already ringing, vying for her attention.

* * *

This was the moment. This was also his second near panic attack of the day.

Swallowing, Horrible did his best to stifle any remaining qualms he had. He was past the point of no return, moments from his first meeting. Whatever they asked him to do, he would do. Anything to… To make the world a better place, right? Good wasn't working, so evil would step up and take it's place. Right. Yet, he was still worried; These were _real _criminals. This was _Bad Horse._ These were murderers and thieves. These were… people that broke into his apartment and left him a note.

But there was honor among thieves, right? He shouldn't have to worry. He was one of them now, for better or worse. And he finally looked the part.

Observing himself in the room's mirror, Horrible couldn't help but sneer slightly at his reflection, if only to add to it. His white lab coat was completely gone, replaced with one that was oh so fitting; Red. Dare he call it, blood red. Sure, the white stitches hadn't taken the dye, but it was no matter as the rest of the fabric had taken the dye well, with no obvious mistakes. His white gloves and boots were replaced with black, as he had decided the day before white and red looked terrible.

Just one more thing to fix. Blinking one last time at himself, the doctor reached up and pulled his goggles over his eyes, plunging his word into a shade several shades darker than what he was used to. He would have to replace the lenses with something a bit lighter, but for now they would serve their use. No more nervous tic to conceal; The goggles would hide it for him.

Standing there, glaring at himself, Dr. Horrible didn't look like "a student trying to show off" anymore. This was everything he ever wanted, right?

Turning away from his reflection, he set his hand on the door, taking a deep breath and ignoring his heart beat and his stomach currently at war with trachea for space in his throat. The clock on the wall behind him said it was 9:59 am. Now or never.

Putting pressure on the door, he opened it and stepped in, all fears forgotten the moment he realized who he was standing in front of. His back naturally stood a bit straighter as he took in a calm breath, instinctively trying to appear larger before the table full of villains and villain-esses and one large, black horse. They all stopped whatever it was they had been chatting about, turning to look at the newbie, who stared back at them in turn.

Unsure of what to do, Horrible did whatever felt natural, going toward the closest seat and sitting down. The man on his immediate left, dressed in a very common looking suit and goggles with some odd machine attached to it, nodded his head slightly in greeting, appearing faintly amused by the new comer. Across the table from him, a vibrantly dressed woman with a mask muttered something beneath her breath-- Something along the lines of "FNG."

No one spoke for a few seconds. At the head of the table, Bad Horse flicked his ears back, snorting and tapping his foot. This caused a man, dressed as an old politician that reminded Horrible of Thomas Jefferson, to sit um and slide a manila envelope across the table to the doctor, smirking slightly as he did so. "Greetings, Horrible; I trust LIFE gave you no problems?"

Taking the envelope and bringing it closer to himself, he answered with a flat: "Of course not," one finger curiously touching the edge before he stopped, figuring if they wanted to read this now, they would tell him to. The look on the imposter Jefferson's face told him this was the right move.

Quickly, the politician introduced the other villains gathered at the table; The brunette in the wedding gown who looked like she wanted to kill him was Fury Leika, the colorful man in makeup was Dead David Bowie, (Horrible sincerely hoped his abilities had nothing to do with music,) the darker skinned woman with the staff was Snake Bite, the man with the odd headgear he had noted earlier was Professor Normal, (Ah, so that was whose initials were on the note he had found,) the woman in the mask was Tie-Die, and the politician was actually Thomas Jefferson. (Bowie at that point had loudly and offhandedly commented that he was obviously a fake, earning a glare from Jefferson and a sigh from most others at the table.) Horrible nodded to each in turn, unsure if he was supposed to speak or what…?

A deep voice from the head of the table interrupted that thought. "Greetings are over with, we don't have time to waste. Jefferson, sit down." The sound of Bad Horse's voice caused everyone at the table, Horrible especially, to sit up a bit higher and pay more attention.

And thus, his first meeting began.

The meeting was surprisingly average, unusual for a group of villains. Logistics and the distribution of "profits" were first, followed by reports on a verity of things; henchmen, equipment, and "Mum" costs being the ones that caught Horrible's attention. Next were tentative plans of action concerning the upcoming election.

"If the old one wins, we won't have to do much; He'll probably die a few months after taking office," Professor Normal had pointed out. "Leaving us with his ever-so brilliant vice president…"

"She's a woman; I can manage her," Bowie had commented. Horrible watched as Fury Leika glared at the other villain, who only smirked and blew her a cheeky kiss in response.

"And if the black one wins?" Normal asked.

"Is this about race?" Tie-Die spoke up, leaning across the table as if to challenge Normal.

"Yes," Normal replied bluntly. "That'll always be a factor, no matter how much he pretends it isn't."

"It doesn't matter, no one, no matter how idealistic, will hold up to a few bribes. We can always blackmail him if we must," Bowie answered easily.

"I heard he has a grandmother; Going to manage her?" Leika asked, crossing her arms across her chest.

Bowie grinned. "If I have to."

This went one for several more moments before Bad Horse told them to shut up and move along. A few other topics were touched on: The Economy, ("Still holding bets as to when economists announce a recession we've been in since December," Normal had offered) ongoing tensions in other countries, and the Heroes Guild speculations were all mentioned. Horrible stayed wisely silent, observing the others and noticing he wasn't the only quiet one; Snake Bite never spoke up either, just watched them all, Horrible included.

Finally, Bad Horse announced the meeting was adjourned, shaking out his mane and proudly exiting the room first. Fake Thomas Jefferson told the others to stay put, finally turning to Horrible and gesturing to the envelope that still lay unopened in front of him. "We're all aware of this, but you are not, Doctor. You see, whenever the league opens up a position, we have a contest of sorts to decide who gets in. We find three promising applicants and test them-- Whoever passes, gets in."

Horrible nodded. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked, finally speaking after being quiet for so long.

"The league isn't too fond of having… Freelance villains active. Most don't represent much of a threat to our standing, but the three we chose to consider did." Horrible had been a threat to their standing? He could hardly believe that; Beyond being beaten by Hammer on a weekly basis, he never got much accomplished before. "As we could only let one in, we're left with two more unnecessary villains that will undoubtedly go back to what they had been doing before, presenting us with unneeded competition."

The doctor nodded, taking the envelope, his mind already jumping to Jefferson's conclusion, his heart sinking into his stomach. "And?" He asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

Jefferson smiled, one that held no warmth. "Consider this another test, Doctor. You have the names and locations of the other two villains. Hunt them down and kill them in any manner you see fit."


	6. So Anyway

A/N; Sorry for the break in updates. Life tried to kill me. More chapters should come sooner, now that I have time.

Yay?

* * *

It was early Monday morning. Or, rather, he guessed it was Monday morning, as it had been dark for some time now, and there were hardly any cars on the street that he could see from his kitchen window.

Not that he could be sure; He had unplugged every clock in his apartment.

If he couldn't keep track of the time, he couldn't be reminded of that event. If he couldn't be reminded of that event, eventually, he hoped, he would forget it. If he forgot it, it might just make his new "Task" easier on him. Hell, it might make every task they threw at him easier, if what he heard mumbled among the other members after the meeting served any indication to what else the league was currently up to. They weren't just evil; they were completely ruthless. All in all, killing two villains seemed awfully tame.

That didn't make it any easier on him, and it certainly didn't stop his stomach from rejecting any food he forced into it when he thought about what he was working on. And he had done nothing but think about what he was working on for two days now.

Horrible sat hunched over his lab table, still wearing his dark red lab coat, the schematics for the stun ray, later turned death ray, spread out haphazardly around him. Behind him stood his whiteboard, covered in a long equation that most people would have given up reading, let alone solving, and a few doodles that somehow always managed to make their way into his work. Sitting on top of most of the schematics was the silver briefcase that held what remained of his stock of Wonderflonium, (Closed tightly as a precaution, as he now knew first hand just how reactive bounced wonderflonium was with oxygen.) and the prototype death ray, which was now no longer a prototype. Instead, he had opened it up, and installed a few modifications that, theoretically, should keep the weapon from exploding if the wonderflonium bounced. A failsafe of sorts; The weapon simply wouldn't fire if anything happened to it that could damage the rather fragile substance that powered it.

It didn't help that the entire time he was working on it, he was gnashing his teeth over how obvious those modifications should have been to him. He knew the chemical was unstable, and he knew before what could happen if it was bounced, and yet he hadn't thought to put a simple failsafe in there? "Idiot," he mumbled to himself, checking over the weapon for what felt like the hundredth time that night. "Stupid, stupid, stupid. No more mistakes on this one." Somehow, verbally reminding himself made him feel better.

It was true; He couldn't make any mistakes. Especially not with not one, but two villains he was supposed to "Hunt down," or whatever Jefferson had said. Looking at their profiles, though, Horrible was a bit unsure how he managed to beat them out to the position; One of them, some man calling himself The Hunter that dressed up like a native american and operated with some half-wolf dog, was responsible to a string of attacks and muggings that had apparently sent some people to the hospital, but hadn't made enough of a wave to get the police's attention. The other, some woman with a military-themed costume that carried around a whip and called herself Corporal Punishment, was responsible for several bank heists and other assorted crimes that ranged from vandalism to con schemes. Overall, both had longer rap sheets than Horrible, and both looked like they could probably beat him up on a bad day. The only conclusion he could reach was that they both must be idiots, and the league was looking for someone a bit smarter who didn't waste his time with petty crimes.

It made total sense to him.

The only problem with being picked over them was the whole "Killing them" part. Whatever was left of his morals aside, he wouldn't be a match against either of them, which meant he would have to ambush them, a plan he was hesitant to try again.

"You have a better weapon this time, and hopefully, no civilians that might get hurt," he mumbled to himself. "And no tool to screw things up."

Besides, the league had given him the locations of the two villains. Surely he could go there during the night, when they were asleep an no one was around? It wasn't very public, and sort of made him feel like a coward, but it was smarter and safer than any other way. (A safer killing?) He just had to… Go and do it.

He'd do it once the new death ray was finished. And, because he didn't want to make any mistakes, he would just have to take his time with it. Horrible doubted they were in a hurry to get killed, so waiting a bit shouldn't be a problem. In fact, he should probably be extra careful, and take a look at their homes (lairs?) later, just to make sure he had all his bases covered. It couldn't--

_Crash!_

"What the--?!" Horrible yelped involuntarily as he was startled out of his thoughts by a loud noise, nearly knocked the new Death Ray, along with the wonderflonium case to the floor. Breathing quickly, he sat perfectly still, his back rigid as he wondered what that was. He didn't smell chemicals, so nothing must of exploded, and didn't hear anyone yelling, so it couldn't be a gunshot or something else that would draw attention--

_Crash!_

This time, Horrible jumped to his feet, rushing to the secret door that separated his lab from the rest of his apartment and pressing his back to it, peering around the corner and out at his door. As the lock had only been broken a few days before, he hadn't had a chance to get a new lock to fix it, and instead had taken a piece of wood from a broken bed frame he found near the dumpster and nailed it across the door, effectively locking the world out and himself in.

Now, the wood was twisted back, splintering dangerously.

Someone was trying to break into his apartment?! Again? Stepping back, he moved about his lab, putting the unfinished death ray under the table and grabbing his Freeze Ray off its mount near the back of the lab, knowing it was the only weapon he had that actually worked. Ducking behind the secret door again, he hit the light switch, plunging the lab into a darkness that was only broken up by a few lit beakers in the back.

_Crash!_

Just in time, too, as the wood finally gave way and the door opened, letting a figure stumble into the apartment. Recovering quickly, the person got onto their feet but stayed crouched down, peering about the dim apartment. From his spot behind the door, Horrible could just barely see them, and froze up as he saw them pass over his television and computer, a clear sign they weren't there to rob him. Frowning, he felt his eye twitch as he tightened his hand around the Freeze Ray, one finger trembling against the trigger as he waited for an opportunity.

Standing up, the figure turned and closed the door as far as its battered frame would allow, and for a second Horrible got a better look at them; Thin, a bit shorter than him, and armed with a small handgun. Obviously, they weren't there to rob him, though he wasn't about to let them accomplish whatever it was they had come there to do! (No matter how much his mind wanted him to curl up beneath his bed at that moment.)

Swearing quietly to themselves, the person moved into the apartment, taking great pains to be silent, something that struck horrible as ironic after they had so loudly broken in. Moving along the walls, they seemed to be feeling for a light switch or something with their free hand, while waving the handgun around with the other, trying to remain alert. Horrible tensed as they began to draw closer to the lab, the lit beaker no doubt catching their attention. Good, good. He hoped.

Once they finally crossed the threshold, Horrible pulled the trigger, filling the lab with a loud and familiar electrical noise and blue light, and letting him catch a glimpse of a military uniform and whip, along with a female form.

"The hell?!" He said as soon as he was sure they were frozen in place, turning to the light switch and turning it on. Just as he suspected; His would be attacker was one of the villains he was supposed to be killing.

Blinking and feeling his eye twitch again, Horrible carefully set the freeze ray down, fully aware of the fact he only had a few minutes to do something about the intruder. Skirting around the woman and being careful not to disrupt the Freeze Ray's field, he went to the door, cracking it open to take a peek out into the hall. No other door was open, and it appeared as if no one had noticed the break in. (Good to know his neighbors had his back.) Shaking his head, Horrible closed the door, frowning as he realized he couldn't close it all the way and reminding himself to find some way to temporarily fix that. (And maybe a sign asking people to knock.)

Now, standing in the once more silent apartment, Horrible was confronted with a problem. "What am I supposed to do with you?" He asked the frozen villainess, frowning to himself and looking down. His death ray wasn't operational, and he really didn't want to kill someone. Not because he couldn't, he quickly amended his thoughts, but because it would certainly be a hassle to get rid of the body, plus the blood stains and all…

It was then he remembered the broken piece of wood at his feet. Reaching down, he picking up one of the two halves, testing its weight in his hands. It was still about a foot long, and while it was awfully splintery, could probably be used as an improvised bludgeon. What if he just knocked them out? Then he could tie her up-- He had duct tape all over the apartment, it was so useful-- and… Figure out what to do with her from there.

Feeling satisfied with his plan, Horrible moved up behind the villainess, arranging himself so that he would have room to hit her with the wood. Taking a few practice swings, he was careful to make sure his full weight would go into the hit, knowing once he hit her, the field would be disrupted and she'd be able to move again, and he really didn't want to try his luck against that whip on his waist. Or the gun, for that matter.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and swung the piece of wood as hard as he could at the back of her head.

There was a sputtered sparking noise as the field was broken, accompanied by a whine as the Freeze Ray powered down. And, of course, a very loud yelp as the woman fell forward, dropping her gun and grabbing her head… But not passing out as he had hoped.

"Ow!" She said over and over again, apparently not yet processing what was going on.

"ShitI'msorry!" He said before he could stop himself, blinking stupidly at the wood and the villainess holding her head on the floor. Biting his lip, he froze for a second before he brought the improvised weapon down on her head again, feeling the wood snap in his hand and being rewarded to the sound of her collapsing completely to the ground, laying prone on her stomach.

Well.

Breathing hard at the previous unwelcome shock of her still being awake, Horrible dropped what was left of the wood on the ground, going to her side and nudging her with the toe of his boot, ready to run if she got up again. Luckily for him, she didn't

Good.

Backing away, he fumbled around in his supplies for a minute before finding a thick roll of silver duct tape with what appeared to be a bit of fuzz stuck to the semi-adhesive edges of the tape. Ignoring the fuzz, he ripped a bit of tape free, picking up the woman's arms and arranging them behind her back before wrapping the tape around her wrists. Staring down at her, he soon wrapped the tape around her ankles as well, in case she decided to get up and run away. But what if she screamed? He covered her mouth with two pieces of tape, careful to leave her nose free, so that she could still breathe. He didn't want her to die on him, after all.

Okay, actually, he did. But, he didn't. Not right then. Or, well-- "You know what you mean," he growled to himself, shaking his head to dislodge his errant thoughts.

Frowning to the villain on the floor, he set his tape on the table before clumsily grabbing her under the arms, dragging her to his oversized arm chair across the lab. He managed to get her upper half on the chair, with her legs still mostly off the ground, but that was okay. She was tied up, after all. Well, taped up.

"Now all I have to do is…" he frowned, staring at the villain. "Wait for you to wake up? I guess?" He asked her silent form, as if he actually expected an answer from her. Way to go, Horrible, talking to someone that was still unconscious thanks to you beating her over the head. With a broken piece of wood. Way to be scientific about that one, Doctor.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" He mused aloud, crossing his arms.

"_This_." Another voice replied, and before Horrible could respond, something very heavy struck him hard in the back of his head, and he was treated to one last thought of how ironic that was before he saw stars and then blackness, and stopped thinking.


	7. Turning

It was dark. His head, and the better half of his face, felt like he had just attempted to break a cinderblock with his head. He was lying on the floor, a hard floor, somewhere, but he wasn't sure where. These were the only things he was really aware of.

"Christ, I probably gave him a concussion…" It was a male's voice, speaking somewhere above him. It wasn't a voice he recognized right away, and that fact made him anxious more than anything else. Still, his thoughts were too muddled for him to make out anything, and despite his heart now hammering in his chest, he couldn't do anything but wait for his mind to clear, second after agonizing second.

"You're worried about him? He probably gave me a concussion! The bastard deserved it." A female's voice this time, somewhere off to his side. Not as high up as the males. Maybe she was on the ground with him? If she was, why? For that matter, why was he on the ground? Why did his head hurt so badly?

"Better than what could have happened to you. But I'm going to have hell to pay if he's really hurt."

Who were these people?

Forcing his eyes open a crack, Billy hissed as bright lights assaulted his vision, making his headache pound ten times harder into his skull and forcing his eyes to shut again in their own defense. Still, in that split second, he had seen enough to wake up his foggy mind, and to remind him what was going on.

He was lying on the floor of his lab, not too far from where he had tied up Corporal Punishment. His head hurt like hell because someone had struck him over the back of his head, just like he had done to the villainess seconds before. Logically, he was now on the floor because he collapsed after losing consciousness. From this, he could at least infer that the woman's voice must belong to the Corporal herself, as he really doubted he had been out long enough for her to get away and for anyone else to come on the scene, and he was still in his lab, so that must mean they weren't police or anyone else that would have freaked out after seeing an unconscious villain on the floor. But who was the male? A henchmen, maybe? Someone else?

"Look, he's coming around. Doctor?" It was Corporal speaking to him. Why wasn't she using this opportunity to get back at him, or do to him whatever she had come there to do? He had more questions than answers, and this was really beginning to annoy him.

Taking a deep breath, he bravely opened his eyes, blearily staring at the person in range of his vision. Corporal must be out of eyesight, because all he could see was a very tall male crouched down next to him, looking at him with something akin to concern in his expression. Billy stared blankly at this man until something in his mind clicked. He raised a light eyebrow, noticing the man's plain clothes, darker complexion, and short black hair with a longer section in the back tied into a braid. A picture of a man in a very different set of clothes with a giant dog came to mind. The Hunter? What the hell?

"There we go. I thought I killed you for a moment," The Hunter informed him, managing a sheepish grin toward the villain. "You didn't leave me much of a choice, though. Once Conner went down, I figured you might get me too, so… Well, sorry anyway."

Billy stared at him for a long moment, his mind refusing to process this statement. It didn't make any sense, and certainly didn't fit into anything he knew about this man. Finally, he spoke. "Dude. If you're apologizing for hurting someone, you're clearly not cut out to be a villain." He could totally see now why he got into the league over these two.

The Hunter chuckled. "Yeah. Well. I was kind of relying on that, to be honest."

This didn't make any sense, and that worried Billy more than everything else. Blinking his eyes, he groaned, touching the back of his head lightly. His hand almost immediately shied away from the knot on the back of his head, no doubt the result of being hit by the not-so-villainous villain in front of him. Great, he was going to be feeling this for a while. Not having even the slightest idea what was going on now, he brought up the first question that came to mind, hoping his situation would resolve itself eventually. "So. Who's Conner?"

"I am," Corporal responded. Billy heard something shift, and the female villain stepped into his view, standing behind the Hunter with what he assumed was ice wrapped in a towel pressed to the back of her head with one hand, her other sitting on the holster of a gun on her belt. Out of the two, she managed to cut a more imposing figure, and Billy was reminded of his precarious position.

None of the three said anything for what felt like a long time. Billy stared at the two people in front of him, trying to reach some sort of conclusion about them that made sense with what little information they had given him. The two villains stared at him, Hunter looking as if he wasn't sure if he should be doing something while Corporal, or Conner, or whoever she was, seemed to be examining the doctor in front of her. She was the one who finally broke the silence. "You've probably figured out we're not really villains, haven't you?"

Actually, no, he hadn't. "Of course I have," Billy said, narrowing his eyes at the woman. Now he was really confused, and getting frustrated with the lot of them. Shakily, he managed to sit up, despite his head's screaming complaints, causing The Hunter, or whoever he was, to stand up and take a step away from him. "Who the hell are you people, and what are you doing in my lab?"

"This is a lab?" Hunter looked away, then around the room, seeming to take everything into account. Finally, he looked back to him. "Okaaaay. It looks more like an apartment to me…"

"Shut up, Hunter," Corporal grunted, shooting a quick glare to her apparently not a villain companion before returning to Billy. "I'm Agent Conner. This, believe it or not, is Agent Hunter." Hunter frowned and rolled his eyes.

Billy stared at them. Then closed his eyes. "As in… Federal agents?"

"That's right. We're investigating The League."

"As in, the ELE," Hunter clarified. "As in, you."

He should have expected this. Suddenly, the genius felt really stupid. How had they figured out…? Posing as villains? Smart. Very smart. But how…? "I've seen your records—"

"We know," Hunter responded, picking something off the table and showing it to him. It was the manila envelope he had received from the league. "They told you to kill us, didn't they?"

Billy opened his mouth. Then promptly shut it again. No way in hell he was going to answer that question. Instead, he shook his head, and decided to continue on with questions of his own. "Your criminal records, I mean. If you're Federal Agents…"

"Those crimes were faked to make us appear legit. Most are just in paper work, and the rest we staged so that The League would see them," Conner told him. "You can't expect us to really break the law. We can't all be like you, William."

It actually took him a second to connect the name to himself. He hadn't heard his full first name in a long time, and hearing it coming from the mouth of a federal agent that he had knocked out was probably the biggest shock he would ever receive from his name. Billy wanted to panic; instead, he took a deep breath to calm himself down, focusing on appearing unaffected by this bit of news. "What do you know about me?" He asked quietly.

"Lots," Hunter responded, actually grinning a bit. "You came to LA for school on a full-scholarship to USC, but dropped out in your third year. Never gave a reason why; top of your class, breezed through everything your entire life. Your professors thought you were a genius, thought you'd go far. You then spent a year bouncing from job to job and apartment to apartment, but never did much that we heard of—didn't even pay taxes, by the way. Then, about a year ago, you started committing crimes as Horrible, and started your blog." Hunter's small smile was a full grin now.

Billy really wanted to shoot that smile.

"You weren't easy to figure out, if it makes you feel any better," Conner said, adjusting the ice pack on her head and wincing slightly. "We only pieced together enough six months ago to figured out who you were."

Hunter shook his head, his smile fading slightly. "We hoped to get to you before you screwed up too badly, but once you killed that girl—"

"I didn't kill her." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Hunter's eyebrow raised, but Conner didn't look surprised.

"That's why we wanted to talk to you," she said.

"Why? Look, I'm sitting on the ground. I could probably go for a weapon if I felt up to it, but there are two of you, so you wouldn't have any trouble stopping me. I'm screwed. Why don't you just arrest me an get it over with?" This was the best conclusion he could come to. Mentally, he was beating himself up over his situation. Obviously, he hadn't been careful enough over the past years, not if they knew that much about him. He had been stupid and careless, thinking Hammer was his only issue. He almost forgot all about the rest of the world, of their cops and federal agents. And now he was going to pay for it.

Damn.

"We don't want to arrest you. You're much more valuable to us free," Hunter hinted, that annoying grin plastered on his face again. Billy decided he hated that man.

He also decided that they wanted something from him, and whatever it was, he wasn't going to be eager to give it. He needed a way out of this situation, now. Frowning, he glanced about his lab, searching for anything he could use to escape some how, or hurt them enough, or do something, even kill them like he was supposed to if it came to it. He knew his death ray was under his table, and that the table was pretty close to him—he could probably nudge it if he wanted to. But he wouldn't be able to get to it in time. And his freeze ray was much further away, so that was out. He had a stun-ray in the closet, but that wasn't very useful right now, either. What was left? The broken wood on the ground that had been used as a lock and finally a weapon, his whiteboards behind him, and that case of wonderflonium on the table. He'd have to work this somehow.

An idea came to mind, faster than he expected. But he'd have to be fast.

"What do you want?" He asked, his voice taking on a monotone quality. Billy wasn't excited to hear whatever they wanted to say.

"We have a deal for you. We need to take down the League somehow—we're hoping to arrest the other members somehow, but to get them, we'll need someone on the inside," Conner explained. "Hunter and I had hoped to get in, but apparently that failed. You, however, did get in, and are the perfect plant."

"Why would I even want to help you?" Billy shot back, one hand going to the buttons on his coat. The two agents tensed, obviously expecting him to go for a weapon of some sort, but relaxed when they saw he was just taking off his coat, pulling the red fabric off and throwing it on the ground near the table. He was wearing a faded grey shirt underneath, and black jeans tucked into his black boots. None of his clothes looked new.

"Because you're not a bad guy," Hunter said.

Billy actually laughed at this.

"I'm not kidding. Look, we've watched you, and your blog, for a long time. You don't like hurting people. You didn't make anything that could be really dangerous until the death ray and the Penny incident." Billy's eye twitched when he spoke her name. How dare he. "At worst, you're a cynical anarchist with a bunch of minor crimes. But a murderer? A supervillain? Hate to tell you this, buddy, but you're no more cut out for the job than I am."

Billy shook his head. "Not cut out? I was going to kill you."

"No, you weren't. You've had time to kill us. If you were serious about it, you would have tried already, or at least started planning something."

Billy swallowed uncomfortably.

"Look, the league isn't your type," Conner jumped in. "They're evil. Really evil. Name a crime, and they've done it. You don't want to get involved with them."

"I already am," Horrible muttered, shaking his head at the pair.

"Not too much, though," Conner added. "W could use you. You could help us out, make our job easier. In return, we'll make your whole record go away. No crimes. No tie to Doctor Horrible. We can help you fit back in with the rest of society, put your mind to work helping us, not hurting us. This is a great deal, William."

"If I say no?"

"Then we'll arrest you," Hunter stated flatly. "Now."

The Doctor sighed, adjusting himself so that he was resting against the leg of the table. As he leaned back, he nudged the table pretty hard with his back and tapping it with the back of his head, causing him to sit forward suddenly and rub the knot on the back of his head. This movement was enough for the table to shake slightly; and the silver case of wonderflonium, which had been sitting on its side on the corner of the table, to wobble, and, to finally fall to the floor with a thud.

Horrible glanced out of the corner of his eye at the case, sighing lightly. Hunter smiled. "Klutz. Try not to hurt yourself any more, eh?" Shaking his head, the agent walked over to the case and picked it up, raising an eyebrow as he read the front. Conner watched Horrible for a long moment before something clicked in her mind and she realized what he was up to.

"Hunter, don't—!"

Too late. The agent, who had already been curious, opened the case to see what was inside of it. This action, as Horrible knew from experience, allowed the now-bounced Wonderflonium inside to be exposed to oxygen, causing it to violently combust.

Right in the agent's hands.

The case blew apart, bits of it striking everything around it, including Hunter, no doubt. Superheated thanks to the combustion, some pieces of the wonderflonium that survived the initial blast flew with the cases, their heat causing them to light small fires on anything that burned easily; like the fifty percent cotton, fifty percent polyester dyed-red labcoat on the ground, for example. The coat lit on fire easily; across the lab, his chair also lit on fire, as well as other small things across the apartment.

Horrible knew he didn't have much time now. Jumping to his feet, he didn't cast a glance to check on Hunter, instead hurrying to grab his death ray and goggles, both together under the table, and freeze ray across the lab before the fires got to them. Conner was busy trying to revive Hunter, and didn't notice that Horrible was leaving until she heard him opening a closet in the corner of the lab. Hurrying up, Horrible grabbed an old lab coat, using it to wrap up the three items, and quickly threw on his faded hoodie.

"Doctor! Stop and think about what you're doing!" He heard Conner call.

He did stop and think. Adjusting the weapons and the labcoat in one hand, he picked up his stun ray off of the closet ground, and shut the door with his foot, pointing the stun ray at Conner and firing. She leapt out of the way of the blast, stepping on his coat, which quickly lit her pant leg on fire. Yelping, she jumped away from the coat, tripping over Hunter's prone figure on the ground and falling flat on her face, quickly struggling to get up and beat out the fire on her clothes.

Horrible didn't wait to see if she made it up, or if Hunter was even alive or not. The fires were quickly growing, and he didn't want to be around for them to get to him. Instead, he adjusting his grip on the bundle and weapon, and quickly fled from the lab, his eyes scanning the apartment for anything else he could take. His eyes fell on the computer—No, too heavy. Damnit, then. Frowning to himself, he aimed the stun ray at the computer's cpu and fired at it, once, twice, three times, until he saw sparks. If he couldn't have it, he wasn't going to leave it for the agents to go through.

Satisfied, he cast a final look about his apartment before rushing to the door and opening it with his foot, taking in a breath of fresh, nighttime air. He hadn't even realized how thick the smoke behind him was starting to get. Not wasting another moment thinking about this, he shut the door as best as he could behind him before running down the hall and toward his car.

Reaching it quickly, he set the bundle down on the hood, fumbling in his pockets for his keys with one hand while the other, still with the stun ray trained on the hallway behind him. No one came out; his neighbours probably weren't even aware there was a fire yet. Part of him wanted to go warn them, but he knew he didn't have time. Instead, he finally got the driver side door open and threw his stuff down on the passenger seat, to include the stun ray, before slamming the door and starting the car.

Horrible was out of there before anyone even got a chance to see him.


	8. No Good Can Come From Bad

Contrary to popular opinion, Jonathan Snow was totally not a complete idiot. Okay, so he had put up a Craigslist posting looking for an arch-nemesis—complete with his phone number, e-mail address, and home address. Okay, so he hadn't exactly branched out with his Hero Name—But the one he had was awesome, so why should he care if it was just basically his name? Okay, so he had abused the caps lock a bit when trying to get a few villains' attention—But who hadn't?

These were just beginner's mistake. Those mistakes did not make him an idiot.

Case in point? He was the only one who thought there was something definitely wrong with LA's newest villain. He had scrutinized Horrible's blog, and had come to the conclusion that, while probably evil and messed up and everything, because, let's face it, you had to be to want to be a villain, the dude was totally a pacifist. Snow came to this conclusion because a, he never wanted to fight him, which was kind of depressing but understandable, b, Horrible had pointed out there were kids in that park Snow had so politely and not-caps-locked at all suggested, which he had kind of forgotten about, and c, he had never really hurt anyone in the past. So why had he done it now?

Excited, Snow had brought this up at the latest Young Heroes meeting. And had been shot down.

Apparently, no one else thought it was unusual that he had just up and decided to kill someone. (But that someone wasn't even a hero or anything!) It was well known he was trying to get into The League—Why would they think it strange he had murdered his arch's current girlfriend? It was even pretty tame, compared to what other members had done to get in, another wannabe hero pointed out.

"How is killing someone 'Tame'?" Johnny challenged, sure that there was no good reply to that.

The Burninator had been quick to answer, listing off the last two new League members, and how they'd gotten in: One that included taking over a bunch of machines at a large auto plant, causing all the cars that came out for a while to be seriously defective and, after a few deaths, resulting in a mass recall, and the other that included a bunch of poisonings to city and state officials. "Totally tame," he'd insisted, a small trail of smoke coming out of his mouth every time he spoke a vowel.

Okaaay. So maybe there was a really good reply to that question. But no one had come up with a decent excuse beyond "Villains do that," which gave him hope he actually was on to something. However, he was out of ammo for his argument, so he had been forced to listen to the rest of the meeting in silence, which mostly consisted of talk about how best to audition for the Guild.

As soon as he got back home to his little apartment, though, he'd gone straight away to his computer to start his search for clues of why his nemesis (Well, almost nemesis) was acting so strange. He'd started at what he thought was the smartest point: He emailed Horrible's site again, but, much to his dismay, received no response. Not even another blog post making fun of him.

Not one to give up to easily, he had started asking around chat sites, message boards, and forums relating to heroes and villains about what was up, and if anyone else saw this behavior as strange. Like at the Young Heroes meeting, most people dismissed his questions, explaining it off as normal. "Supervillains all wind up killing people eventually," one person had written. "Why it took Horrible this long to do this is the real question."

Two days after the meeting, Snow was depressed with his lack of results, and was beginning to run out of places online to look. Exhausted and very aware it was very late, he still refused to give up, contemplating putting on his parka and seeing if he could root out any henchmen to question when his inbox pinged, alerting him to a new email. Too tired to be very curious, Snow read the address it came from, which was just a string of letters and numbers; key indicators of a bot. He almost dismissed it as another probable spam message until the tag line caught his interest. "Turn on the news."

The news? Okay. Frowning, he turned on his little television, and sat down to watch. Nothing interesting came up, and just as he was about to nod off on his couch, the news reporter began talking about something that caught his attention.

An apartment fire, one that the firemen had just managed to get out after a nearly three-hour battle with the blaze. As the reporter began to talk about the building's poor construction, the two bodies that had been found, and the third that was believed to still be in there somewhere, they started showing pictures; pictures of blackened furniture, of men putting out flames with giant hoses, and of the damaged apartments themselves.

Johnny sucked in a breath as he saw a picture that looked oddly familiar. Blackened and burned, but familiar nonetheless.

He should know; he scrutinized Horrible's blogs closer than anyone else he knew. He, of all people, would recognize a picture of that guy's place if it were shown to him. And that burned apartment room they just showed on the news was definitely the background in those blogs.

* * *

Billy wasn't quite sure exactly how long he drove around the city for. Minutes, hours, it was hard to tell with no clock—his mission to unplug every clock he owned hadn't stopped at his door, apparently. It was still rather dark, so it couldn't be too late. (Or early?) While he didn't know the time, he was painfully aware of his pounding head, and eventually decided to pull into a convenience store in hopes of getting something for it before… doing something else.

Shutting off the car, he rested his forehead against the top of the steering wheel, closing his eyes in vain hope that doing so would help the pain. It didn't. Pound. Pound. Pound. Over and over again, like some sadistic little drummer attempting to beat up his brain.

Carefully, ever so carefully, he touched the knot at the base of his skull, forcing himself to keep his trembling hand there to survey the damage despite the stab of burning pain that came every time he so much as brushed anything against it. After a few seconds he came to the conclusion there was probably a knot the size of a walnut there, but besides that he didn't think he was in too much trouble; nothing felt broken, and he was pretty sure he didn't have a concussion. Well, almost sure. He couldn't quite remember the symptoms of one, so he was going to write himself off as not having one.

Unless memory loss was a symptom.

It wasn't, right?

Shaking his head, Billy opened his eyes partially, peering at the lit up convenience store he had decided to park in. He didn't recognize the place, which, barring potential memory issues, was good; they wouldn't recognize him here. (Not that there was anything to recognize about him, but with that encounter with federal agents fresh in his mind, he knew he needed to be more careful now.) Not only that, but there seemed to only be one person inside, the cashier, who seemed to have their attention captured just reading the paper. The parking lot was deserted, save for his car.

Good. Very good.

Opening the car door, Billy got out, having to steady himself on the frame to stop his shaky legs from outright collapsing beneath him. He frowned, recognizing this feeling; whatever adrenaline he was running on had promptly run off, leaving him trembling and sweating in its wake. Despite this, he took a deep breath, zipped up his hoodie a bit further, and paused to retrieve his stun ray from the car before slipping it into his jacket, shutting the door and shuffling toward the store, one shaky step at a time.

Inside the store was nothing new. Rows and rows of junk, be it food and drink, cheap toys, lighters, and assorted medicines and other supplies that people bought here when they couldn't be bothered to make it to the nearest supermarket. Directly to the right of the entrance was the counter, with the very uninterested and uninteresting clerk reading her paper as a small television on the counter in front of her went on about some sports team that won the night before, or some other trivial nonsense. Still, even that sound, junk or not, was reassuring in its own way; it at least saved Billy from having to be quiet to continue to go unnoticed.

Shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket and ignoring the papers he had left in them, he quickly made his way toward the bottles and bottles of pills that made up the majority of the furthest aisle from the door, his headache politely informing him that it was still there with every step. He stopped in his tracks upon reaching the aisle, staring blankly at the obscene amount of painkillers offered there and wondering who on earth could possibly get away with marketing the same thing so many different ways. Sighing, he began the tedious chore of discerning what medicine would actually work, a task he hadn't been forced to do in quite a while. (After so many years of taking useless pills, he had made his own painkillers. Unfortunately, he didn't have them now.)

As Billy mentally weighed the pros and cons between Tylenol and Ibuprofen, his attention strayed to the television, which was still obnoxiously filling the store with the latest news, now about early morning traffic. While this was mind-numbingly boring stuff, the words "Apartment Fire" clearly reached his ears, causing him to drop the bottle of Tylenol he had been reading as he glanced over at the television, the very loud clinking of pills pulling his attention back. Swearing beneath his breath, Billy bent to retrieve the bottle, wincing as he heard a female voice in his direction.

"You need something, over there?" Playing it off as calmly as he could manage, Billy slid the Tylenol back on the shelf while he pocketed the Ibuprofen, deciding not to risk liver damage.

"Uh… No. Just… a bit clumsy," He explained, looking down and blinking hard a few times, huddling his shoulders and appearing to attempt to shrink himself and hide in his hoodie. Typically, this trick worked in getting people to ignore him, and he was counting on it working tonight. Or, this morning. Whatever time it was.

No such luck.

"You hear about that apartment fire?"

"No." Nor did he want to hear about it.

"Nasty stuff. The whole place about burned down, thanks to some cheap wood or something they used to build the place."

He cringed inwardly, though outwardly still appeared to be the uninteresting person trying to edge their way toward the door. This was soon in vain, as he had to stop and look at what was on the shelf in front of him as the clerk glanced over at him again, apparently not satisfied by his lack of reply. Doing his best to ignore the fact he was now staring uncomfortably at a row of condoms, he said the first thing that came to mind. "Do they know what started the fire?"

The clerk shrugged. "They think it was an accident. But if you ask me, it was intentional. Probably some bored arsonist or something."

Billy bit back the desire to point out the fact that no one had asked her, instead moving down the aisle a bit more, away from the clerk, and the door, unfortunately. "Probably," He agreed unenthusiastically.

The clerk shook her head, staring at the television again. "Too bad those people got hurt, too."

He stood still, forcing his eyes to focus. No. That's not what he wanted to hear. That wasn't supposed to happen. "That is too bad," he managed to choke out after a delayed second.

"Yeah, found two bodies already, and they think there's a third in there somewhere."

Billy's vision dimmed upon hearing this, and he had to set his hand on the shelf in front of him to steady himself before he collapsed for the second time that night. No. No. No! That wasn't supposed to happen at all! It was just supposed to be a fire. A distraction, a means for him to get away. Two bodies…? Hunter and Conner. Damn it! Damn them. If they hadn't shown up at his apartment—if he hadn't opened the wonderflonium case… No, that was his plan.

And a third body? Someone else he didn't know? An innocent bystander? Someone who probably hadn't done anything to him, who was probably asleep, waiting to start their day in a few hours. A kid? An adult? He didn't even know. He didn't want to know. But he had to.

"Do they have any suspects?" He asked quietly, taking deep breaths in hopes that it'd help him keep his composure, despite the fact he was biting back the desire to either scream and hit things—or curl up and start crying right there.

"Nope. They can't even tell where the fire started yet, it was that bad. Can you believe that? But, rest assured, they'll get the guy. You just wait and see."

That wasn't assuring at all. Not for him. And Billy was pretty sure he wasn't going to rest now. Taking in another breath, he glanced up and down the aisle until he found the sleeping pills, numbly taking a bottle and slipping it into his other pocket. Potential risks of mixing medicines and getting addicted or anything adverse be damned—he didn't want to think about this for a few hours.

He needed to get out of there. Right away.

Walking toward the door, he opened it and stepped out, ignoring the clerk's calls, asking him if he was even going to buy anything. He didn't make it out, however, before he managed to hear the television announce that it was time for the five AM report.

Five AM.

One hundred, seventy-six hours, fifty four minutes. And counting.


	9. Little Peoples

**A/N; Thanks to all the reviewers, readers, and people who accidentally clicked on this story. Stats makes me happy. (No matter how infrequently I update. Ha ha?)**

**----**

While one cynical observer may have argued that people were too wrapped up in their own lives and would have ignored something like an apartment fire, this one did not go unnoticed by many people. For most of the crowd gathering around the burned building, they were there because they just lost their homes and possessions to a particularly aggressive fire. For others, they were just waking up to face another day, and stopped to gape at the familiar building they had drove past so many times before, asking what had happened to it, their groggy, pre-caffeinated brains unable to piece two and two together. For one particularly soggy bystander, he was trying to stave off worry for his friend, who he had the worst suspicion hadn't made it out of that building in time.

He should have known something like this would eventually happen! The Doctor's apartment was practically a ticking time bomb, just waiting for something to be hit to hard, or for something to fall, or for two things to be mixed together wrong and explode and burn down everything in sight. That guy had had jars and beakers and boxes of stuff just haphazardly lying around, and while Moist was hardly chemistry major, he was pretty sure a lot of that stuff was flammable to some degree. Because of this, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that the fire had started in the Doc's apartment, whether or not the fireman and police officers that he had listened to talk would confirm it or not.

And if that was the case… Well, where was he? Moist had searched through the crowd, hoping to spot the familiar blond man blending in with everyone else, but to no avail. He wasn't there. The next logical step was to call him—but his cell phone was broken, as Pummeler had discovered the broken halves of his phone under the television (As a rule, Moist wasn't allowed near electronics) while the two henches were setting up for the party a few days ago. He had tried calling a few of the other henchmen, to see if any of them had heard from him, but all he got was a string of "No's" and "If you ever call me this early again, I'll kill you's."

He was running out of places to look, and the increase of the drops of water dripping to the ground were a sure sign he was getting more and more worried as sunrise approached.

His fears weren't unfounded, either. Two bodies, a male and female, had been found and pulled out of the wreckage so far, and a couple of other people were being treated for burns and smoke inhalation, sitting in the backs of ambulances and breathing into oxygen masks while tired-looking paramedics checked their heart rates and did other… paramedic-y stuff. Could one of those bodies been Horrible? Moist had tried to ask to look at them, but had been roughly pushed away by a man in a uniform with a dark mustache who told him it was "None of his damn business," and to stay behind the tape that had been put up.

"But one of them might be-" he'd started, only to be roughly brushed off again.

"The bodies have already been identified. Now, move along!" And with that, the man in the uniform retreated back toward the group of other official looking people to converse with them about something official, probably.

None of this helped to ease his worries. With a despondent sigh, he'd started shuffling back toward the group of people that were still gawking at the building, trying to rationally convince himself that his friend was still alive and was just laying low somewhere, completely unhurt, when a very loud and very obnoxious voice broke through the assorted quiet conversations and comments.

"Come on, let me though!" The voice whined. "This is official… Hero… Stuff!"

Moist winced. He knew that voice, didn't he? Turning back around, he saw a short man in a thick, fluffy blue parka that was totally inappropriate for the later summer morning, sporting ski goggles and impossibly spiked brown hair, obviously trying to convince another officer that he should be let through to the building. Oh, yeah, he did know this guy—Johnny Blizzard, or something else really stupid. Moist had run into him a few times, usually while playing cover-up for one of Horrible's crimes, and thought of all the heroes in the city, he had to be the most pathetic of the lot. And annoying, too, at least to Moist; the guy's powers involved freezing things, and, well, with all the extra water around, Moist wasn't exactly the most freeze-friendly person in the city.

But what was he doing here?

Trying to appear nonchalant, Moist stuck his hands in his pockets, idly wandering a bit closer to the wanna-be hero to see what he was talking about.

"Look, one, you don't have Hero Guild credentials, and two, this has nothing to do with you crazies. Move. Along," the officer, a slightly less imposing man than Moist had had to stand up to (At least in his opinion) ordered, clearly unamused by Johnny's attempts to get in.

"S-so? And this totally has to do with… uh… hero and villain stuff," Johnny clumsily recovered, trying to take a step forward to get in the guys face. This failed, as the officer loomed forward slightly, causing the small hero to retreat a step. "Don'tyou know who lived here?" He challenged.

Moist looked up, surprise etched into his face. Johnny knew Horrible had lived here?

The officer didn't seem to know or care. "No. Now leave."

"Horrible, man!" Johnny blurted out, clearly far too excited for his own good. He was even hopping up down a bit, like a child being given candy. "As in, Doctor?"

This got the officer's attention. "What? That's absurd, he—"

"—He totally does!" Johnny was nearly shouting at the guy. Moist kind of wanted to slap him for being so annoying, and would have if there weren't so many people around. "Look, someone sent me a email to look at the news, and I saw a few shots from inside the apartments, and they totally look like his place from his blogs! Don't you people pay attention to this kind of stuff?"

Wrong question. The officer seemed to take offense to this. "Yes, we do," he snapped. "Look, we'll look into this. You go home and play your little games while the real cops take care of the bad guys. Okay?"

"But--!"

"Go. Away. Now!" His tone left no room for argument. Moist silently applauded the guy, unable to hide a grin on his face. Defeated, Johnny turned away—

And saw Moist.

The soggy henchmen dropped his grin. "Aw, man," he mumbled.

"Hey, you--!" Johnny started. Moist turned and tried to retreat back toward the group of people, when something very cold grabbed his left leg, causing him to nearly overbalance and fall over when he tried to take another step. Glancing down, he saw that a layer of ice more or less glued him to the concrete, where he had been standing and dripping for a few moments now. Damn.

"Yeah, freeze!" Johnny added, apparently trying to cover for not using his signature battle cry before he actually used his power. Moist rolled his eyes. Amateur! "You're—you're Horrible's hench, aren't you?" Johnny asked upon catching up to him, which, admittedly, wasn't very hard, considering he couldn't take another step.

"Maybe," Moist replied. "You're Blizzard, right?"

"Snow."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Johnny appeared unsure of what to say next. Moist frowned.

"Aren't you supposed to be… I 'unno, questioning me or something?" Moist ventured, wishing the ice on his leg would melt already, before he got frostbite or something.

"Uh, yeah," the hero replied, tugging at his gloves. "But, I didn't really think I'd actually get you, so…"

"Oh."

"Yeaaaah." Johnny stared at him for a moment. "So… where's our Horrible little friend?"

Moist raised an eyebrow. Johnny blinked. "Your boss?"

"I know who he is, I'm just wondering why you called him that."

"It sounded cool. Answer the question!" Moist was having trouble taking seriously a guy in a fluffy blue parka. Still, it wasn't like there was anything else he could do…

"No, I don't know where he is. I tried calling him, but his phone's broken, and no one's heard from him or seen him," Moist replied finally, a small note of anxiety worming its way into his voice. Yeah, he was worried about him. So what?

"Oh." Johnny seemed more than a bit disappointed to hear this.

"Why are you here, anyway?" Moist asked. "You're usually the last person to the scene."

"Someone sent me an email, told me to check this place out. I've been looking for your boss, you know." Moist resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Yeah, him and everyone else in LA right now. Almost as an afterthought, Johnny added—"And I'm not the last person there!"

"Dude, you were like, an hour late to the last heist."

"Forty five minutes! The traffic was bad!" Johnny snapped and huffed. "And… I'm not letting you go until you tell me where Horrible is. So there."

Moist couldn't believe this. "I already told you, look—"

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"Because he isn't." Both men were interrupted by a third man, the very official looking guy in uniform with a mustache that Moist had been arguing with earlier. Behind him, two people stood, the first, the man Johnny had been talking to, and the second, a woman with bandages on her arms and a burned pant leg.

"Who're you?" Johnny asked, the first of the two to recover from the surprise.

"Agent Dysart. Can you come with us, please?" The man's request was framed more like a command.

"Who're they?" Johnny asked, pointing to the two people behind him. Moist sighed, beginning to tug at his leg, sincerely wishing the ice would melt already. His toes had gone numb by this point.

Apparently, Dysart shared Moist's impatience. "Agents Conner and Goldschitz. Look, we're investigating your friend, and you need to come with us, please. Now."

"Oh, okay," Johnny seemed more than willing to accept this explanation, and judging by the way his face lit up when the agents mentioned Horrible, was excited about this, too. Moist didn't share this feeling—in fact, he couldn't help but feel a sense of dread. Federal Agents were investigating Horrible? That was bad. And here he was, iced to the cement and unable to run, and unable to warn his friend even if he could run. That was even worse.

"Come on, Moist, let's go find your boss," the hero oh-so-helpfully said, the smirk on his face telling him that he so meant to say that. Dysart frowned, looking to the soggy henchmen, who had sunk his head in vain hopes he wouldn't be noticed. This failed.

"You're one of Horrible's henchmen?"

"Maybe," Moist muttered.

"Then you need to come with us as well."

"I can't."

Dysart frowned again. "Why not?" He asked sternly.

Moist pointed to his frozen leg.

Johnny let out a quiet "Oh," and pointed at the ice. Almost immediately, it turned back into water and trickled down onto the cement.

"Yeah. Okay. I can come now," Moist said, heaving another sigh.

Yeah, this was going to be a long day.

---

The best things about motels were their anonymity. Anyone could walk into one, check in with a fake name, and hide for a few days. And that was exactly what Billy did, signing the check in book with the name "Carl Jenkins," paying the modest fee with what money had had left, before grabbing his makeshift bag of stuff, taking his key, and retreating into his tiny, dingy room.

Unfortunately, the anonymity was about the only good thing going for the motel. Doing his best to ignore the scent of mold that permeated everything, Billy sat down on the bed, dropping the coat and assorted rays onto the mattress next to him and trying to not think about what had probably happened on this bed. Instead, he rubbed at his eyes, trying to ignore his headache, which three painkillers hadn't helped stop, and the swirling thoughts and images that were currently cluttering up his brain.

He just needed to stop thinking for a little bit. That was all.

After a quick, admittedly careless glance over his inventions, he deemed them intact before wrapping them back up in his coat and stuffing them under the mattress. He then set about pulling things out of his pockets, finding the two bottles of pills, his keys, his wallet, and a very crumpled piece of paper. Frowning, he smoothed it out, realizing it was the back of a picture.

Damn it.

Turning it over, he stared at the burry shot of the girl he had killed. Had this been any other time, any other place, he would have been upset, would have cried or yelled or sworn or done… something. But he didn't. He didn't feel anything, strangely enough. He killed her. He loved her, and he killed her, and those were the facts.

Those agents. He didn't love them, and had very probably killed them. That, too, was a fact. And he couldn't change facts, no matter how hard he tried.

Maybe he was just tired. He needed sleep. Taking the picture, he folded it up, squeezing the creases until it was very nearly flat, and pushing it into one of the card slots in his wallet. Maybe he would feel something about it later, and could be depressed about it and mourn her then. But right now, he had bigger issues to worry about—Like, federal agents, and not being caught and arrested for yet more killings.

Billy knew he should be worried about that, too. Were this a few days ago, he would be panicking, pacing up and down the room and pulling his hair out and blinking and doing all the stuff he used to do when he was nervous or scared. But he wasn't, not right now, at least.

Going to the pills, he grabbed two more painkillers, as well as a sleeping pill, and set about searching for something he could use as a glass. Finding a stack of plastic ones in the bathroom, he turned on the faucet, frowning as less-than-clear water gurgled out of the pipes, and filled one of the cups, before throwing the pills into his mouth and swallowing them with a gulp of water. That done, he turned off the faucet, killed the lights, and collapsed into the bed.

Billy had a lot of things to think about, but he was dead asleep before the first thought could even worm its way across his brain.


End file.
